H.R. 4235 — To clarify the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016, to appropriately limit the application of defenses based on the passage of time and other non-merits defenses to claims under that Act.

This section amends the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016 (HEAR Act), which provides a uniform six-year federal limitations period (preempting state statutes of limitations) for civil claims to recover artwork or other property confiscated or misappropriated by Nazis if the U.S. national claimant first discovered the identity and location after January 1, 2010. (As background, the HEAR Act aimed to facilitate meritorious claims frustrated by varying and expired state limitations periods.) The amendments (1) insert congressional findings in section 2 articulating the Act's intent to permit such claims notwithstanding time-based defenses (e.g., laches, adverse possession, acquisitive prescription, usucapion) or non-merits defenses (e.g., act of state doctrine, forum non conveniens, international comity, prudential exhaustion), extending to property lost due to Nazi persecution regardless of victim nationality (notwithstanding Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp, 592 U.S. 169 (2021)), and revises a prior finding to state that alternative dispute resolution “may, in some circumstances, yield just and fair resolutions as well” (from “will yield just and fair resolutions in a more efficient and predictable manner”); (2) expands section 3(2) preemption to explicitly include “other non-merits defenses” alongside statutes of limitation; and (3) restructures section 5 to deem covered claims excepted from foreign sovereign immunity under the FSIA exception for violations of international law (28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(3)) without regard to victim nationality, preclude time-based and non-merits defenses for otherwise timely claims under the Act, and authorize nationwide service of process; and (4) adds a severability provision as new section 6. The amendments apply to civil claims pending on the date of enactment (including on appeal or where the appeal period has not expired) or filed on or after the date of enactment.